Oregon City man who used a Lincoln Navigator to run down and kill his wife as she gardened at the Milwaukie home they once shared will likely die in prison.

Robert Ellis Henderson, 67, was sentenced today in Clackamas County Circuit Court to life in prison with a 25-year minimum for the May 7, 2007, murder of Eileen Henderson, 52. Prosecutors said he slammed into his wife with such force that he knocked the garage off its foundation.

She filed for divorce a month before her death. They had been married 32 years.

Henderson, a former long-haul truck driver, suffered a stroke in 1989 and drank heavily. Prosecutors described him as a controlling figure who would sit in his recliner, snap his fingers and order his wife to serve him drinks.

The troubled marriage further disintegrated after a caregiver who moved in to help around the house began an affair with Eileen Henderson, prosecutors said.

Robert Henderson maintained that he had not intended to kill his wife, but tire tracks showed he steered directly toward her. An acquaintance who was in the car testified that Henderson tapped him on the knee and said, "Watch this," before gunning the SUV.